Imagine holding the complete instruction manual for building and operating a human being—all 3 billion letters of genetic code that determine everything from eye color to disease susceptibility. Just two decades ago, reading this manual cost nearly $3 billion and took 13 years to complete. Today, it can be done for under $1,000 in less than a day. This extraordinary advancement in genomic sequencing—the process of determining the precise order of nucleotides within DNA molecules—has unleashed a revolution in biotechnology and genetic engineering that promises to transform healthcare, agriculture, and our understanding of life itself.